100 days of LinkedIn posts
What I learned from posting 100 posts in 100 days
This was originally published as a LinkedIn post.
I've now posted on LinkedIn 100 days in a row. What did I learn?
You probably shouldn't post on LinkedIn every day 😅
Detailed breakdown below 👇
Just over 3 months ago I decided I wanted to be more consistent with posting on LinkedIn. I'd been stagnating at around 8,000 followers for 2 years.
So on the advice of some very successful “Linkedineers”, I decided to post every single day for 100 days.
Let's start with the results of 100 days of posting:
- 100 posts (including ±11 reposts)
- 270,000+ Impressions
- 3,136+ engagements (1/3 comments, 2/3 likes)
- 872 new followers (9.4% growth)
- 1 major shitstorm
- ±2.5 hours per week spent creating posts
- a handful of leads that could be partially attributed to my posts
All in all, the results aren't too bad. The consistency definitely moved the needle But the results are also not amazing.
That said, I did have some surprising learnings from this process.
In no particular order:
1. Posting consistently improved my results.
It's a no-brainer really. The more I posted, the more people saw my content, the more likely they were to follow and engage. It's a virtuous cycle.
2. Posting consistently made me more reflective
Having to come up with post ideas every day forced me to notice and write down the interesting conversations and challenges I face every day. That's been very helpful and formulating it into a public post was a great way to reflect.
3. Posting every day sometimes hurt my reach
Forcing myself to post every day also led to some very rushed or lazy posts that I think actually hurt the reach of my following posts.
4. I shouldn't have time to post on LinkedIn every day
Weeks where I was working on super valuable stuff for the business were weeks I struggled the most to make time to post. It begs the question: If you have time to post on LinkedIn every day, are you busy enough with the right stuff? When I see people post every day, I question how valuable their time is.
5. LinkedIn doesn't always reward deep expertise
Some of my best thought-out posts had the least reach, even if they had some of the best, most thoughtful feedback. In the meantime, vacuous life updates, sharing trending news and memes consistently get massive reach.
6. LinkedIn results are the mother of all vanity metrics
Most people on LinkedIn are aiming for quantity over quality. It's easy to get sucked into the vanity metrics (I felt it too). But the more you dig into some of the most successful people on here, the more you notice that their engagement comes from a combination of bots, people commenting to boost their own LinkedIn game, juniors who are easily impressed and people in countries likely outside of their target market.
7. Being awesome outside of LinkedIn is the best way to grow your LinkedIn
Some of the most legitimate AND successful people on this platform are being followed because of what they do OUTSIDE of LinkedIn. 28% of my new followers came from public speaking engagements that were 10x more impactful (and way less work) than my LinkedIn posts.
8. Forget all the formatting bullsh*t
The very best content I see on LinkedIn is super smart people sharing their random musings and brain dumps. Good content gets engagement. All the spacing hacks and emojis make 0 difference.
9. LinkedIn is as toxic as all other social media.
I quit all socials almost 10 years ago because it just isn't good for me. Posting every day meant I had 1 or 2 posts that missed the mark. And when they did, I got a ton of hate. And I've seen people picking on others on here like it's 4Chan in the early 2000s. Posting every day has made me more addicted to consuming content on LinkedIn and that has not been good for me.
10. LinkedIn is a channel. Not an occupation.
It's easy to forget that LinkedIn is just a channel at the end of the day. If you're doing awesome things, then LinkedIn is 100% a fantastic place to share those things with a relevant audience. But I felt myself falling in the trap of "doing LinkedIn for the sake of doing LinkedIn". Don't let the platform dictate what content you create and how.
Bottom line: LinkedIn can be a super channel to promote yourself, your business and your expertise. But don't let the shiny numbers change what you do, what you create and how you create it.
If you have any questions, shoot them my way!!
-Ferdinand Goetzen